From Vietnamese Markets to the UN: Nguyen’s Dream and Believe Journey

The Pamela M. Mullin Dream and Believe Award typically goes to a single doctoral student at Claremont Graduate University each year. This year it was given to two, and one of them was Vui Nguyen. 

Nguyen grew up selling vegetables at a market in rural Vietnam before school each morning, driven by a single conviction: that education was her way out of poverty and her way toward changing the lives of women like her. That drive has since carried her from those markets to the floor of the United Nations. 

The award pairs full financial support with public recognition for a PhD candidate who has shown exceptional promise by taking the first steps toward an ambitious and rewarding dream. For Nguyen, a doctoral student in organizational behavior whose research centers on women’s empowerment and servant leadership, it affirmed a path she had been building since childhood and removed the financial barriers that often force international students to choose between ambition and survival. 

She saw how hard it was for women in Vietnam to provide for themselves and decided to build her life around changing that. While working full time as a banking associate in Hanoi, she realized that advancing her career required more than technical ability. She needed a strong network and fluent English. For eight years she gave free tours to international visitors, an unconventional but effective way to build fluency and cultural awareness. The same energy and determination that carried her from those markets would later carry her to New York. 

“I wanted to be in an environment where my voice could be heard and where I could grow both intellectually and personally,” she said. 

That search led her to the United States and to CGU, where interdisciplinary thinking and socially impactful research matched her ambitions. Her advisor, Stephen Gilliland, met her while she was visiting doctoral programs. Drawn to his work in the Justice and Organizational Behavior Research Lab, she had been connected to him through her former advisor at Cal State Fullerton. 

“She came to my office with her advisor from Cal State Fullerton. She was finishing up her MBA program and doing some research there, and they came to meet me and talk about our PhD program,” Gilliland said. “In that meeting, I was just so impressed by how motivated she was, how driven, and just her passion for making a difference for women in her home country of Vietnam.” 

Servant Leadership and Cultural Change 

At CGU, Nguyen’s research focuses on leadership, organizational culture, and employee well-being, with particular attention to women’s empowerment. She examines how leadership models translate across cultural contexts and where they fall short. Alongside multiple publications, she mentors young women from Vietnam pursuing their educations, modeling servant leadership in practice. 

One current project evaluates existing servant leadership frameworks through a cultural lens, analyzing how fairness, trust, and empowerment function in collectivist societies such as Vietnam, China, and Taiwan. Another aims to develop a culturally grounded leadership model built for those contexts. 

Servant leadership is central to Gilliland’s research. “When you are a servant leader, you lead for the people. It’s an aspect of organizational justice, and it ensures fairness for employees and organizations.” Gilliland said. 

Nguyen is also conducting qualitative research on how Confucian values, patriarchal norms, and what she describes as “collective silence” shape women’s access to opportunity and capacity for agency. This summer she plans to return to Vietnam to collect data directly from local communities, ensuring her research reflects lived experience. 

Gilliland sees the stakes clearly. “One of Vui’s goals is to empower women in Vietnam, which really is one of transforming society. She’s living what she’s trying to do for her country. She is an empowered woman. But it didn’t come from somebody else giving it to her; it has come from her digging down deep and figuring it out. With all the kinds of hurdles and obstacles that she’s overcome, she has identified how to make life easier for the women that come after her. To have that effect is incredibly inspiring.” 

From Claremont to a Global Stage 

Working with Gilliland, Nguyen identified programs for international students completing graduate degrees in the United States, which led her to Graduate Women International, a nonprofit advancing women’s rights through education. She refined her application with Gilliland’s help and was chosen by the organization to represent Vietnam at the Commission on the Status of Women conference at the United Nations in New York City. When funding was needed, Gilliland connected her to research funds. 

“This is such an honor for you, for CGU, and for Vietnam. We need to make sure that this can happen,” Gilliland said. 

For Nguyen, the conference was both a professional milestone and a personal one. 

“Representing my country at the United Nations was both an honor and a responsibility,” she said. “It allowed me to share my research while bringing forward the voices and experiences of women from my community.” 

The platform connected her academic work to global policy conversations on gender equity, education, and leadership, and reinforced the importance of representation in international spaces. “This experience reinforced my belief that addressing global challenges such as gender equity requires diverse voices,” Nguyen said. 

Looking Ahead 

Nguyen’s goals reach beyond academia. She plans to pursue a faculty position while maintaining strong ties to Vietnam, collaborating with universities and government agencies and developing leadership and education programs for students and young professionals, particularly women from disadvantaged backgrounds. She also intends to keep publishing research that informs policy and practice, shaping more inclusive systems at both organizational and national levels. 

“My long-term goal extends to serving Vietnam as a national leader,” Nguyen said. “I want to contribute to a more inclusive and empowered society.” 

Gilliland believes that ambition is within reach. “In our very first meeting, I asked Vui what, ultimately, she wanted to do with her PhD? Without blinking, Nguyen said, ‘I want to be kind of Prime Minister of Vietnam.’ Her confidence and humility in that moment made me realize that’s actually plausible. She has so much drive, passion, and infectious energy. When she returns to Vietnam, she is going to bring that wherever she goes and will be an amazing force.”